Great art and (some) fabulous humor, but the geographical implications requiring correction make this a difficult choice.
The wisecracking musk ox and buttoned-up zebra take off to travel the world.
These pals (last seen in Musk Ox Counts, 2013) have a half-fond, half-irritated, very entertaining relationship. When the zebra finds their globe shattered and his companion utterly ignorant of geography, he whisks them off on a tour of continents, lecturing all the way—while the musk ox quips. Some of the humor is genuinely rib-tickling, in particular their banter. Also funny are the musk ox bestride a camel, penguins toppling hilariously in Antarctic wind gusts, and various “Hysterical Marker” signs with attitude (“In 1911, the South Pole was discovered by 5 men and 16 dogs. Guess who took the credit?”). Other jokes fall flat, such as the musk ox’s pickup-artist lines: Zebra introduces some animals “called gnus,” and musk ox says, “Well, I just want to call them. Hello, ladies! Is it hot out here or is it me?” Jazzy information (Antarctica’s a desert!) tussles with artistic license (Bactrian camels erroneously show up in Africa). The portrayals of the continents employ a lazy reductiveness: Africa’s all nature and animals, while Europe has the Eiffel Tower—and humans. Target-age readers are too young to unpack this problematic implication. Myers’ paintings are visually bold, truly funny and richly colored.
Great art and (some) fabulous humor, but the geographical implications requiring correction make this a difficult choice. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59643-799-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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